Yuri is a student at St. Clair College in Windsor ON, studying Esports Administration and Entrepreneurship. Yuri is passionate about all aspects of esports and specializes in League of Legends and Overwatch. He has competed in the Collegiate Overwatch League for his school team - Saints Gaming.

League of Legends: Patch 9.17 Breakdown

Welcome everyone to the weekly ESTNN rundown on the newest League of Legends patch! Today we’ll be diving into the 9.17 patch and taking a look at the latest balance changes and the rippling butterfly effects each change may have on the meta. Riot Games have announced that no major game-changing patches will happen until after the release of 9.19 – the projected patch in which Worlds will be played on. To summarize the two most significant changes of this patch, Aurelion Sol and Kayle are receiving small reworks that should make them a lot more impactful on the Rift.

Champions

Aurelion Sol (REWORK)

Ratio changed from 0.18-0.35 (levels 1-18) ability power to .25 ability power at all levels.

Removed nullifying CC passive.

Q – Starsurge:

Cooldown changed from 10 seconds to 11/10/9/8/7 seconds.

Movement speed increased from 10% to 20%.

New passive: If Aurelion Sol is faster than his star, the star will speed up to keep up with him.

W – Celestial Expansion:

Ability change: When Aurelion Sol toggles the Outer Limit of his W, his stars gain increased damage and rotate at a high but decaying speed. After 3 seconds (or if Aurelion Sol reactivates it early), the stars will retract and grant Aurelion Sol 40% movement speed, decaying over 1.5 seconds.

Cooldown changed from 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds to 8/6.5/5/3.5/2 seconds.

E – Comet of Legend:

Removed passive: Aurelion no longer gains bonus movement speed when moving in the same direction.

Range increased from 3000/4000/5000/6000/7000 to 5500/6000/6500/7000/7500.

Ryze (BUFF)

Zyra (BUFF)

R – Stranglethorns:

Mana cost changed from 100/120/140 mana to 100 mana at all ranks.

Cooldown reduced from 130/120/110 seconds to 110/100/90 seconds.

Breakdown

Starting off the analysis will be a quick rundown of the newest reworks to Aurelion Sol and Kayle. Taking a look at the new and improved Star Forger, Aurelion has become a bit more of a burst mage as opposed to his old control mage with burst potential playstyle. A massive quality of life buff for him enables his passive to continue spinning despite being affected by crowd control effects. Thereby through this change, Aurelion has the potential to finish off low health targets while being clobbered in a team fight. Besides that, his Q and W abilities have been given a lot more power, allowing him to become a much bigger threat in the mid to late game thanks to his increased scaling.

Considering the huge flop of the reworked Kayle’s launch, it is nice to see The Righteous angel receiving some tweaks. To summarize the changes, Kayle lost a bit of late-game power to facilitate an easier transition between her form changes. Aside from the form changes, her Q now has the potential to be a free cast thanks to the new mana refund mechanic implemented. These two changes should give the angel a better chance of surviving her horrid early game and allow her to scale a bit more safely to become a late-game damage threat for her team.

In addition to those changes, a slight quality of life buff for Pantheon will now enable him to be a stronger jungling choice while also giving him more power as a laner. There were many other bugfixes implemented in this patch and a variety of new skins and chromas coming to the game. For more information on those topics, you can read them here: https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-917-notes.